MasterAuron
Very Senior Member
This article is intended to serve as a guide on how to best maintain the paintwork of your vehicle. I'll try to keep things as brief and user-friendly as possible but it's perfectly possible to create whole guides just on individual areas (such as machine polishing).
Let's start at the beginning:
Washing Your Car
Sponges are evil. Remember that. All they do is trap dirt between themselves and the paintwork and become more like sandpaper:
You will need a good quality lambs/sheepswool or microfibre mitt. These trap dirt within the fibres and keep it away from the paintwork until you rinse it out.
Meguiars do a good quality lambswool mitt, which i use:
You will also need a shampoo of sorts to wash your car with. This is more to provide a lubricant when usurping any dirt rather than to have pretty bubbles or smell nice. Your mitt should be able to glide nicely over the car. DO NOT use washing up liquid or some other household detergent. Most will strip any protection from the paintwork and leave the surface dull. Some even contain salt which can cause corrosion (ie rust!). What you ideally want is a pH neutral shampoo to leave all of your lovely wax in tact. For example: Dodo Juice "Born to be Mild".
You need to wash your paintwork with care. First, rinse the car. This is to remove as much loose dirt as possible before you even touch the car. Best done with a jetwash but can also be done with a hose. Keep jetwashes to low pressure to avoid blasting loose dirt and grit into the paintwork and scratching it.
Now...have you ever heard of the "two bucket" method? The idea here is to fill one bucket with your water/shampoo mix (cold or warm is fine) and another with just water. You first dip your mitt into the bucket with the shampoo in, then proceed to wash some of the car. Rinse your mitt off in the bucket of plain water then go back for more from the shampoo bucket. That way you have a bucket of dirty water to clean your mitt in and another to use clean water/shampoo to clean the car. You can get grit-guards but that's not feasible for everyone.
Start from the roof and work your way down. The motion isn't important so much as the pressure. Apply light pressure not pushing too hard or "scrubbing" in one particular area as this usually creates scratches or swirls. Repeat until the whole car is washed including the wheels, keeping your mitt as clean as possible.
Now, rinse the car completely with a hose or jetwash on low pressure.
Lovely. It is now advisible to dry your car with a microfibre cloth or drying towel, not a leather chamois.
You should wash your car at least once a week to keep the paint in top condition.
Claying
An additional step in cleaning your paintwork can be done by "claying" your paint. Rubbing clay along your paintwork picks up all the bonded contaminents that normal washing cannot remove. Even on what you think is very clean paint, you will find that your clean clay bar gradually becomes dirty as above.
You need a clay bar and a lubricant. Water can be used but a proper lubricant is preferably. Meguiars do a good kit avaliable from Halfords etc. Knead the clay into a usable shape and then spray the lubricant on both the clay and on the panel to be clayed. Next gently rub the clay along the surface of the panel. You may feel it drag slightly as it picks up the contaminents, too much drag and you are not using enough lubricant and so risk damaging you paint.
Once the surface of the clay becomes dirty, re-knead it so you are using a clean part of the clay. And don't forget to keep it lubricated. This is to avoid scratching your paint and prevent marring. Wipe the panel dry with a microfibre cloth, repeat throughout the whole car and then wash the car once more as detailed above.
You only need to clay your car about once a year.
Polishing
In short, polish is an abrasive chemical used to remove surface grime and layers of clearcoat/paint from the vehicle. There is a huge range of polishes that vary in how abrasive they are, what they contain, how they are designed to be applied, etc etc.
You can either polish a car by hand or using one of two machines:
A Rotary Polisher: Rotates in one direction only, very easy to burn through the paint in all but the hands of an expert. Completely superceded by the existence of.....
Dual Action polisher (DA): The pad orbits randomly. This generates far less heat and is a lot kinder on the paintwork. Very easy to use and get good results, even for a beginner.
However, I'll assume most people won't be interested in machine polishing their vehicle and full correction work. How to polish your car by hand:
1. Ensure your paint is completely clean and dry.
2. Using a good quality foam applicator or microfibre cloth work the polish back and forth or round and round. (or both). Direction isn't important. What is allowing enough time for the abrasives to properly break down and that the polish has been worked in firmly and evenly. The polish will generally turn clear or to a haze when it has broken down.
3. Buff off with a microfibre towel.
Simples! When polishing by hand I'd recommend Autoglym Super Resin Polish as it is easy to get good results with using the limited hand polishing method.
Machine Polishing by DA:
Finish and correction ability over a large area isn't even comparable to applying by hand. DAS-6 is a good option if you want something that is good value. You need to polish small areas at a time (18"x18" for example) for correction work and stay away from the edges of the panels where the paint is thinner. Apply light pressure and you want to be moving only a couple of inches a second when correcting.
You want to use the least abrasive polish and pad combo that still removes the defects if that makes sense. This will minimise the clearcoat/paint removal. Something like Dodo Juice Lime Prime is great at removing light swirls and minor defects. Anything more serious will need something with more cut. Megs #83 would be ideal.
You won't burn the paint with a DA and nothing too aggressive unless you're a complete tool. There's no need to keep the head wet with any modern polish (not G3 for example) in fact DON'T keep the pads wet as it will affect the working of the polish and may lead to it splattering everywhere. If you are using a dry, dusty polish a couple of quick spritzes with water onto the pad is helpful though, but nothing more.
Let's start at the beginning:
Washing Your Car
Sponges are evil. Remember that. All they do is trap dirt between themselves and the paintwork and become more like sandpaper:
You will need a good quality lambs/sheepswool or microfibre mitt. These trap dirt within the fibres and keep it away from the paintwork until you rinse it out.
Meguiars do a good quality lambswool mitt, which i use:
You will also need a shampoo of sorts to wash your car with. This is more to provide a lubricant when usurping any dirt rather than to have pretty bubbles or smell nice. Your mitt should be able to glide nicely over the car. DO NOT use washing up liquid or some other household detergent. Most will strip any protection from the paintwork and leave the surface dull. Some even contain salt which can cause corrosion (ie rust!). What you ideally want is a pH neutral shampoo to leave all of your lovely wax in tact. For example: Dodo Juice "Born to be Mild".
You need to wash your paintwork with care. First, rinse the car. This is to remove as much loose dirt as possible before you even touch the car. Best done with a jetwash but can also be done with a hose. Keep jetwashes to low pressure to avoid blasting loose dirt and grit into the paintwork and scratching it.
Now...have you ever heard of the "two bucket" method? The idea here is to fill one bucket with your water/shampoo mix (cold or warm is fine) and another with just water. You first dip your mitt into the bucket with the shampoo in, then proceed to wash some of the car. Rinse your mitt off in the bucket of plain water then go back for more from the shampoo bucket. That way you have a bucket of dirty water to clean your mitt in and another to use clean water/shampoo to clean the car. You can get grit-guards but that's not feasible for everyone.
Start from the roof and work your way down. The motion isn't important so much as the pressure. Apply light pressure not pushing too hard or "scrubbing" in one particular area as this usually creates scratches or swirls. Repeat until the whole car is washed including the wheels, keeping your mitt as clean as possible.
Now, rinse the car completely with a hose or jetwash on low pressure.
Lovely. It is now advisible to dry your car with a microfibre cloth or drying towel, not a leather chamois.
You should wash your car at least once a week to keep the paint in top condition.
Claying
An additional step in cleaning your paintwork can be done by "claying" your paint. Rubbing clay along your paintwork picks up all the bonded contaminents that normal washing cannot remove. Even on what you think is very clean paint, you will find that your clean clay bar gradually becomes dirty as above.
You need a clay bar and a lubricant. Water can be used but a proper lubricant is preferably. Meguiars do a good kit avaliable from Halfords etc. Knead the clay into a usable shape and then spray the lubricant on both the clay and on the panel to be clayed. Next gently rub the clay along the surface of the panel. You may feel it drag slightly as it picks up the contaminents, too much drag and you are not using enough lubricant and so risk damaging you paint.
Once the surface of the clay becomes dirty, re-knead it so you are using a clean part of the clay. And don't forget to keep it lubricated. This is to avoid scratching your paint and prevent marring. Wipe the panel dry with a microfibre cloth, repeat throughout the whole car and then wash the car once more as detailed above.
You only need to clay your car about once a year.
Polishing
In short, polish is an abrasive chemical used to remove surface grime and layers of clearcoat/paint from the vehicle. There is a huge range of polishes that vary in how abrasive they are, what they contain, how they are designed to be applied, etc etc.
You can either polish a car by hand or using one of two machines:
A Rotary Polisher: Rotates in one direction only, very easy to burn through the paint in all but the hands of an expert. Completely superceded by the existence of.....
Dual Action polisher (DA): The pad orbits randomly. This generates far less heat and is a lot kinder on the paintwork. Very easy to use and get good results, even for a beginner.
However, I'll assume most people won't be interested in machine polishing their vehicle and full correction work. How to polish your car by hand:
1. Ensure your paint is completely clean and dry.
2. Using a good quality foam applicator or microfibre cloth work the polish back and forth or round and round. (or both). Direction isn't important. What is allowing enough time for the abrasives to properly break down and that the polish has been worked in firmly and evenly. The polish will generally turn clear or to a haze when it has broken down.
3. Buff off with a microfibre towel.
Simples! When polishing by hand I'd recommend Autoglym Super Resin Polish as it is easy to get good results with using the limited hand polishing method.
Machine Polishing by DA:
Finish and correction ability over a large area isn't even comparable to applying by hand. DAS-6 is a good option if you want something that is good value. You need to polish small areas at a time (18"x18" for example) for correction work and stay away from the edges of the panels where the paint is thinner. Apply light pressure and you want to be moving only a couple of inches a second when correcting.
You want to use the least abrasive polish and pad combo that still removes the defects if that makes sense. This will minimise the clearcoat/paint removal. Something like Dodo Juice Lime Prime is great at removing light swirls and minor defects. Anything more serious will need something with more cut. Megs #83 would be ideal.
You won't burn the paint with a DA and nothing too aggressive unless you're a complete tool. There's no need to keep the head wet with any modern polish (not G3 for example) in fact DON'T keep the pads wet as it will affect the working of the polish and may lead to it splattering everywhere. If you are using a dry, dusty polish a couple of quick spritzes with water onto the pad is helpful though, but nothing more.
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